Skills?

[BryonD]

I've seen a reference or three to "what we know so far" about skills.
So far I don't "know" anything about skills. And I don't see a thread about them.
Am I missing something? Or are people making just calling their assumptions knowledge?

What do we know about skills based on what WotC has said?
Can we list the details we know, or can someone link me to a thread I may have missed?

Thanks

 

[DogBackward]

I believe it was mentioned in the GenCon video that skills will be at least inspired by SWSE. That's been a pretty popular change, from what I've seen, and I like it a lot myself. I'm not sure what all we do know, though, as I haven't been online much lately. I'm thinking that using the consolidated skill list while keeping the skill point system is a pretty decent idea.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I think Star Wars Saga Edition was cited as being something of a preview of the next edition of D&D, in a number of ways, skills (apparently) likely being one of them.

Hopefully someone's got a link though, as - apart from anything else - I wouldn't mind having it confirmed, denied, or definitely unknown, just to be sure.

 

[Henry]

The biggest downfall I've seen so far discussed about Star Wars Saga-like skills is that all of them consistently increase, whether trained in them or not. Conan the level 20 barbarian will know as much about spellcraft as the level 1 wizard who spent all of his formative years in the academy of magic. Also, the negative connotation is that you won't have a character who ISN'T skilled in any skill whatsoever - the tweaking and customization that some players enjoyed would be gone.

The first point I can see, but to me the more realistic is that you're going to know a little something about everything if you're a super-bad level 20 adventurer. James Bond knows a bit about everything, from cooking to computer hacking, and the level 20 adventurer is the fantasy equivalent. Conan doesn't know that the shimmering wall is a wall of force, he instead knows that it's just like the wall that Pelias dispelled when fighting "that stygian wizard that one time", and Pelias called it a "wall of force."

The second point has more bite, because it directly cuts into player fun. If there are enough players out there who want that customization, I think it would behoove WotC to have at least an easy optional rule to allow for it -- and personally, I think there are enough that they really should think about this. Not everyone wants that Conan with the +10 spellcraft, and telling them, "just don't use it," is kind of like telling a cleric not to use his spontaneous cure spells when the party needs it.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, IIRC, you get +1/2 level to all skills that can be used Untrained, but cannot use Trained Only skills unless you're Trained. So Spellcraft would probably be a Trained Only skill, while Athletics (Climb, Jump, Swim) would be a skill everybody gets some basic ability with.

--fje

 

[Tharen the Damned]

I do not think that it will work exactly like that in 4th.
Again I point to Iron Heros (wdesigned by Mike Mearls) where skills were grouped together.
An Athletics group inclueds Jump, Climb and Swim for example.
You just spend skill points on this group and not on individual skill.
But you still spend skill points.
That IMO would also be a very good and easy way to apply skill points to Monsters.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The biggest downfall I've seen so far discussed about Star Wars Saga-like skills is that all of them consistently increase, whether trained in them or not. Conan the level 20 barbarian will know as much about spellcraft as the level 1 wizard who spent all of his formative years in the academy of magic. Also, the negative connotation is that you won't have a character who ISN'T skilled in any skill whatsoever - the tweaking and customization that some players enjoyed would be gone.

That's not quite true.

While Conan the Level 20 barbarian would have the same +10 bonus to Spellcraft that the Trained and Focused Apprentice does, the apprentice would also have access to the Trained Only uses of Spellcraft.

While identifying a spell as its being cast might be an untrained use (Conan does, after all, begin to recognize a spell after he's seen the serpent priests cast it about 30 times), reading magical runes or invoking a spell from a scroll* is still beyond him. Our Apprentice Wizard is also much more likely to take a feat or talent like Spellcasting Prodigy, which lets him reroll any Spellcraft attempt and take the better result.

So, while the raw bonus is similar, the Wizard 1 is better at the skill and can use it in more applications.

Similarly, the "tweaking" that many people cite as a benefit of the skill points system is still present. It's just been moved into the realm of talents and feats, rather than base skill modifiers.

* Note: These are all guesses about what might be trained or untrained uses of a skill which may or may not exist in 4E.

 

[Jhaelen]

I think Star Wars Saga Edition was cited as being something of a preview of the next edition of D&D, in a number of ways, skills (apparently) likely being one of them.

Yup. Someone also explicitly mentioned that several skills will be folded into one (e.g. Move Silently & Hide).

 

[BryonD]

I had forgotten, but now I do recall that someone specifically said Hide and Move Silently would be merged.

I hope that if they do use a SWSE type system that it is very significantly modified. When I read through the development notes for SWSE they specifically talked about how in the movies that everyone seemed to have some degree of skill in most anything if the time came that they needed it. I agree that it is this way in the movies. So that idea works for me for a Star Wars game. But it does not fly the same for D&D.

Perhaps the system will work along the same line, except custom skill lists per character are selected. One of the examples somewhere did talk about a rogue character that didn't bother with social stuff. So that may indicate that you don't get automatic advancement in full suites of skills.

We will see.

 

[Jim DelRosso]

I, for one, hope they bring the SWSE system over pretty much as-is. I'd love a bit of pulpy omnicompetence in my high level D&D characters, and I think the "Trained-only uses" mechanic is an excellent way to make distinctions between the experienced barbarian who's seen a lot of magic cast and the wizard who's actually got some book-learning under his belt.